I bought one of the first 128K Macs in 1984, and like Adam, I’ve bought 20 or so of them in the intervening period, seven or eight of which are alive and in use among my extended family (the oldest, a PowerMac 8500 from 1995 is in use solely as a floppy disk reader, but most of the others are used on a daily basis). I can endorse Adam’s observation that the working life of a Mac, at around seven years, is quite a bit longer than that of the average Windows machine.

The last fifteen years have seen highs and lows for the Mac, but with the massive cash flow from the iPod and the apparent crossover effect on Mac sales, the future looks pretty bright.

My Amstrad PPC 512 is still going strong – since 1989. Not much use for anything these days though. My old PCs have only ceased going because they were cannabilised for upgrading. Thats my complaint against Apple- the iMAC I have here is impossible to usefully upgrade in a cost effecient way compared to a PC.